This is a short post regarding a backpacking trip done within Puckaskwa National Park, located on the eastern edge of Lake Superior in Ontario, Canada. In a departure from my normal method of blogging, I’m not going to go into extensive details regarding the logistics or camping aspects of the trip, but will largely let the pictures “do the talking.”
Trip Summary
The drive to Puckaskwa National Park (pronounced “puck-a-saw”) primarily follows the Trans-Canada Highway. It’s an easy drive, but does not go through very many large cities on this segment. The visitor center was very nice, and was the start of our Backcountry Hiking Trail adventure. More about the trail, including a trip planner, can be found here.
Some relevant information to provide you an idea of the difficulty of the hike are as follows:
- You take a boat south on Lake Superior for a little more than one hour to reach your starting point (North Swallow River). You are then unceremoniously dropped off from the front of the boat using a step ladder.
- The hike is then approximately 45 miles north to the visitor center. As the trip planner essentially says, once you’re out in the wilderness it’s up to you to get out…. Emergency services exist, but it could take days to get to you.
- It rained on and off the first two days.
- Our packs weighed ~20% (more in my case) of our body weight. Mine weighed slightly less than 40 pounds (more than 20%).
- Here’s a table to show the relevant statistics from my Apple Watch (the numbers are lower than actual as my watch ran out of power in the middle of the last day.
| Move (Calories) | Exercise (Min) | Steps | Distance (Miles) | Flights of Stairs | |
| Tues, July 15 | 1,746 | 208 | 28,994 | 12.97 | 67 |
| Wed, July 16 | 1,521 | 115 | 28,240 | 12.12 | 25 |
| Thurs, July 17 | 1,701 | 145 | 34,235 | 14.67 | 23 |
| Fri, July 18 | 1,406 | 100 | 26,819 | 11.49 | 29 |
| Sat, July 19 | 1,753 | 169 | 31,499 | 13.46 | 50 |
| Sun, July 20* | 835 | 108 | 13,890 | 6.03 | 48 |
| Total | 8,962 | 845 | 163,677 | 70.74 | 242 |
| Average per day | 1,494 | 141 | 27,280 | 12 | 40 |
| * Partial Day |
As you can imagine, taking more than 27k steps per day carrying a 35+ pound pack on uneven and sometimes steep terrain was tiring. Sleeping at night was NOT a problem.
A map of our hike is provided below:
And now to the most important part: the photos taken collectively by the four hikers on the trip.
Photos
if you are interested in learning more about this trip, please reach out via the comment section!